Yemonja, Yoruban deity celebrated as the giver of life and as the metaphysical mother of all orisha (deities) within the Yoruba spiritual pantheon.
Yemonja’s name is derived from the Yoruba words Yeye or Iya (“mother”), omo (“child/children”), and eja (“fish”) and thus literally means “Mother whose children are the fish.” According to the itans (stories) of the Yoruba, the orisha Yemonja was a primordial spiritual entity who was charged by Olofi (God; also known as Olodumare) to assist the orisha Obatala with the formation of humans in Olofi’s creation of Earth. Yemonja descended to Earth on a rope with 16 other orisha from Orun, the abode of Olofi, and traveled throughout the world engaging with other orisha in preparing the world for humankind. She is the orisha of the Ogun River, the largest river within the territory of Yorubaland, and is the counterpart of Olokun, who represents the unknowable bottom of the sea.
In Yorubaland, in Nigeria, each town maintained its own deity based on the myths of its founders. Tapa (Iganna) in the Oke Ogun area is where Yemonja originated. However, the worship of Yemonja began in Saki. Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun state, is the site of her principal shrine; she is especially celebrated in the Ibara quarter of that city.
Yemonja is frequently portrayed as the wife of various male personified orisha, such as Obatala, Okere, Orisha Oko, and Erinle. She is also said to be the mother of Ogun, Sango, Oya, Osun, Oba, Orisha Oko, Babaluaiye, and Osoosi. Many other itans describe her as having never given birth but as having raised many children, in particular Sango, Dada, and the Ibeji (twins). The itans also describe her as having long breasts as a result of the many children she nursed. Her sensitivity and embarrassment about her long breasts are consistent throughout the stories, and several tell of her turning herself into a river in response to insults about that by other orisha.
Although also attributed to the orisha Osun, stories refer to Yemonja as having been given (or as having stolen) the ability to interpret the oral scripture verses of the 16 Odu Ifa through the divination process called merindinlogun. It is said that Yemonja taught other orisha that alternative method of accessing the Odu through the “throwing” of cowrie shells.
Yemonja has been likened to amniotic fluid, because she too protects her children against a predatory world. She is temperamental and can be soothing or unpredictably violent. She is the orisha of fertility as well as of bodies of water and has under her protection dockworkers, boatwrights, fishers, sailors, swimmers, and others who work, live, or travel around water. Yemonja is the patron of the Gelede Society (“Society of Mothers”). She is associated with the fish-gill facial markings worn by the lyawo (initiate into the priesthood) and is said to have assisted Sango in ending the practice of twin infanticide in Nigeria. Her animal totems are the duck, the vulture, the snake, and the small snail; her sacrificial animals are the ram, the lamb, the duck, the rooster, the goat, the fish, and the pigeon. She is represented in her various shrines in Africa by sacred stones, known as ota, placed in river water in a calabash.
The statures of Yemonja and Olokun increased in prominence in the Americas and the Caribbean as the enslaved survivors of the Middle Passage propitiated Olokun to bless their lost kinsmen and petitioned Yemonja for an alleviation of their suffering. Yemonja’s omnipresence surrounding the islands and coastal areas of Cuba, Trinidad, and Brazil served as a continuous reminder of her ability to comfort and nurture hope. Attempts to annihilate African traditional cultural practices were resisted through the establishment of ethnic social organizations in Brazil and Cuba, as well as through the masquerading of the orisha with the saints of Roman Catholicism. In Cuba, Yemonja was creolized as Yemaya. Enslaved and free Africans who spoke Yoruba became identified as Lucumi, and their religious practice became known as Regla Lucumi. In the Brazilian religious movement Candomblé, she is known as Yemanja and has been celebrated since the 1930s on New Year’s Eve as followers of Candomblé and the Amerindian Umbanda systems construct miniature altars on the beaches and send small paper boats into the sea with inscribed prayers.
In Cuban, Brazilian, Trinidadian, Puerto Rican, and U.S. homes, Yemonja’s altars are often decorated with fountains and other symbols of the sea, such as fish nets, miniature boats, shells, live fish, peacock feathers, fans, and a blue or blue-and-white crockery vessel that houses her sacred stones in ocean or river water. The number 7 belongs to her, representing the seven seas; her devotees wear seven silver bracelets, and she is often seen wearing full skirts with seven blue-and-white layers. Her necklace, ileke, is made of crystal or crystal and blue beads, sometimes with red coral. She is summoned with a gourd rattle.